Creepy Cathedral

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"Now when we enter an old cathedral, we have scarcely a hint of the esoteric meaning of its stony symbolism. Only the general impression forces itself on our mind. We feel the exaltation of the spirit and the abasement of the flesh. The interior of the cathedral is a hollow cross, and we walk here amid the instruments of martyrdom itself. The variegated windows cast on us their red and green lights, like drops of blood and ichor; requiems for the dead resound through the aisles; under our feet are grave-stones and decay; in harmony with the colossal pillars, the soul soars aloft, painfully tearing itself away from the body, which sinks to the ground like a cast-off garment."

— Heinrich Heine, The Romantic School

So, you're up against the Corrupt Church. You know that they're lying to the people, but no one will listen to you. It's time to take matters into your own hands, storm their base and reveal them for the evil bastards they are.

There's just one little problem. That means you actually have to go in their Church. And that place is scary as Hell itself.

The Creepy Cathedral might not have the vigour of a good old Haunted Castle, and it might not seem to give off that scary dungeon aura... but there's just something about it that makes you think, "Oh, Crap!", the moment you go inside.

Examples

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Action Adventure

Most Castlevania games hold a "Chapel" level. Circle of the Moon had one with a giant lamb's head that spews poison, fireballs and flying skulls, while Curse of Darkness has an extra-boss living inside a mass of corpses, hidden in the church, in a room full of bodies that make the walls. (Scares and Womb Level, anyone?)

Scratches features an extremely creepy chapel featuring an unsettling wooden statue of Christ, and a hidden room filled with books and stuff of the occult right underneath the altar. Oh, and it has this BGM.

A secret passage that Brian Dutton follows in TheSeventhGuest leads him and the player to a dark, demonic chapel. It has all the accoutrements of a Catholic chapel, with a Confessional booth and a pipe organ played by a skeleton. And per the game's overall strangeness, the front door is blocked off from inside.

Beneath a Steel Sky has an old, disused cathedral on the ground level. Once you get inside, you get some hint about what's going on. It's just a prelude of what you'll find later in the subway though.

In the FPS video game Painkiller, one of the early stages is exactly like this. You fight your way through a graveyard full of revenants and confront the Big Baddie inside the cathedral. Something about the place isn't quite right... maybe it's the dismembered corpses suspended by chains from the ceiling?

Notre Dame from Time Splitters 2 qualifies. It's full of undead for good measure.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein in the appropriately named level "The Defiled Church", with Nazi soldiers on the top levels and undead in the bottom.

In System Shock 2, After reversing the gravity in Deck 2 of the UNN Rickenbacker, the player comes across a coldly-lit, futuristic chapel that's been turned completely upside down. Naturally, the cross in the back now looks satanic, cleverly symbolizing the hellish nature of everything around the ship.

Hack And Slash

Tristram Cathedral, the site of the main action in Diablo. It's got 16 levels, each more horrific than the last, and they eventually take you to Hell itself to face the title archdemon.

The Cathedral is revisited in a limited capacity in the first act of Diablo III, where you make two trips — one to rescue Deckard Cain, and the other to destroy the Skeleton King and get to the bottom of the star that fell upon the cathedral.

The Cathedral is one of the final levels you can reach in The Binding of Isaac. True to Isaac form, pretty much every creature there is trying to kill you, up to and including the Cathedral's boss, which is none other than yourself.

Enter the Gungeon has The Abbey of The True Gun; a secret area full of Religious-like elements and the Cardinal enemies, Bullet kin in priest clothing

Role Playing Game

The Hulle Granz Cathedral from the .hack//G.U. games. Might not have the whole dungeon thing going, but makes up for it with sheer imposing ominousness, as well as being the home to more than a couple plot twists and epic battles through the series.

The main feature of the Undead Parish in Dark Souls. With plenty of tough Undead, some very troublesome unique foes, its bell tower is also home to the first Bell Of Awakening. The cathedral in Anor Londo becomes this if you kill Gwynevere which causes the (fake) sun to vanish.

Dark Souls III likes this trope. In addition to the imposing entrance to Lothric Castle, the Cathedral of the Deep is an entire area unto itself (dedicated to worshipping Aldrich), Pontiff Sulyvhan makes his home in one in Irithyll (more beautifully built, but still dedicated to worshipping Aldrich), and finally Anor Londo makes a return, except dark, covered with filth and slime, and, once again, now dedicated to worshipping Aldrich (the Aldrich faithful seem very fond of cathedrals).

The Chapel of Lights from Sunless Sea is out on a distant island in the far north and heavily isolated. The residents, who stick to the shadows and are rarely seen, offer visitors food which has a chance of being people; there's a well on the island that will eat your dreams and wound your soul, but only if you've committed cannibalism.

The infernal plane of Stygia in Nexus Clash is dotted with Dark Cathedrals made of bones and packed with ancient dust and entrapped soul energy. As the Flavor Text puts it, "you don't want to be here during mass".

Stealth Based Game

Thief:The Dark Project has a level where Garret must infiltrate a Hammerite cathedral at the epicenter of a disaster that ruined a district of The City decades ago, which has now been walled off and is infested with the undead. The Hammer Haunts in the cathedral itself are especially dangerous, and it is one of the most chilling levels in the game. The Soulforge Cathedral of the Mechanists from the second game (Thief : The Metal Age) isn't haunted, but it's still a very eerie place to be (at least during the events the mission is set in).

Survival Horror

Oublie Cathedral from Eternal Darkness would qualify. Most of the fighting and exposition takes place in the catacombs beneath it, though.

The final level of Silent Hill 3 rakes place in the cult's church, which in complete with pews, pulpit, and confessional.

The final sections of Brennenburg castle from Amnesia: The Dark Descent are named after the parts of a cathedral (Chancel, Choir, Transept, Nave), making it fit this, though it doesn't quite look like a church.

The chapel near Mandus' home in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. The windows are stained with the blood of pigs and their mutilated corpses piled atop the altar. In the notes it is revealed this was a key source of "raw material" for the Manpigs, abducting entire congregations and sending them to the machine through a hidden passage.

Non-video game examples:

Anime & Manga

In the fifth episode of Cowboy Bebop, "Ballad of Fallen Angels", Spike and Vicious have their bloody reunion in a cathedral.

The cathedral from Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas where Tenma and his companions find Nasu Veronica. On top of that, Veronica is dressed as a nun and plays the organ as they arrive.

Zigzagged in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where the eponymous cathedral is depicted as extremely beautiful but also imposing and foreboding, especially to Frollo at the beginning where he feels he's being judged by the cathedral for killing Quasimodo's mother in front it.

Films - Live Action

Gotham City Cathedral from Tim Burton's Batman, where the Batman and the Joker have their final confrontation. Amusingly, any Catholic will tell you that Catholic churches are almost always named after a saint, and never after the city or town in which they are located (which is a Protestant tradition). Of course, some famous cathedral's have widely used nicknames.

True to its gothic aesthetic, the final battle between Eric Draven, Top Dollar and his minions in The Crow also takes place in an abandoned cathedral.

Literature

Poul Anderson: In Operation Chaos, the cathedral and surrounding town of Siloam are extra creepy, including nonstop chanting of Barbarous Names.

Most buildings are creepy in The Monk, but cathedrals, monasteries, and nunneries take the cake for places of of incredible terror and torture.

The cathedral of Dras-Leona in Inheritance Cycle, where practitioners of a self-mutilating religion do their thing.

Tabletop Games

Warhammer has plenty. Pretty much every major city in the Empire has a grandiose and imposing cathedral to Sigmar - grim fanatical warrior priests giving fiery sermons a given, and the remains witch burnings usually in evidence outside. The Great Cathedral in Altdorf is easily the biggest, and beneath it are miles of labyrinths where all manner of forbidden magical artifacts are locked away. The creepiest cathedrals have to be the ruinous ones of Sylvania though, which ratchet up the gothic horror element.

The Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40,000, with its heavily gothic-inspired aesthetic, has these in abundance. Pretty much any John Blanche illustration will have a background full of them, and the remains of smaller ones are available as scenery kits for the game. Even the aesthetics of the largest Imperial Titans are full of gothic cathedral elements, and Imperial Spaceships have creepy cathedrals integrated into their superstructure. Special mention must go to Black Templars Chaplain Grimaldus though, who is accompanied by a retinue of Cenobyte Servitors carrying pieces of a destroyed Imperial Cathedral with them as holy relics. Most religious buildings are generally decorated with winged skulls which are symbols of the Imperium.

Moving up from Imperial gothic-creepiness into full-on splatterpunk horror, temples to Chaos - the work of the Word Bearers, generally - are typically forged from human bodies (either by using blood to mortar the stones or literally by building the entire structure out of human bits), full of editions of the Book of Lorgar written on the skin of slain Imperial priests, and materials that don't usually exist in normal spacetime, and bear such cheery features as sacrificial altars, torture chambers, constantly shifting runes that hurt the eyes to look upon, and the like.

Zig-zagged by Notre Dame in The Hunchback of Notre Dame; it's not consistently creepy as it's often beautiful and is home to most of the film, including Heartwarming Moments, but is also scary in the opening scene. Lightning illuminates the eyes of the statues so they appear to look angry at Frollo, giving him a guilty conscience over trying to kill Quasimodo. (While the creepiness in this case saves someone's life it's still one of the many scary and dark moments in the film.)

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